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----------------------------- 2215 - The oldest blackhole
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- Astronomers have found the oldest blackhole. It is not only ancient, it is enormous. Blackholes have enough mass and a small enough volume to warp space-time to fold back on itself. Not even photons of light can escape this condensed gravity.
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- Blackholes that collapse from stars could be 30 solar mass. However, there are gigantic blackholes t the center of galaxies that are 800,000,000 times the mass of the Sun. Most recent discoveries have dated some of these gigantic black holes to when the universe was only 690,000,000 years old.
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- These discoveries are surprising because astronomers thought blackholes became large and gigantic by merging with other blackholes. These multiple mergers would take time. This enormous blackhole existed when the universe was only 5% its current age. This is hardly enough astronomical time for multiple mergers.
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- This oldest blackhole is over 13,000,000,000 years old. Of course astronomers are not actually seeing the blackhole. The are seeing a Quasar that has a blackhole at its center. This particular quasar was discovered in 1962. Quasars are the brightest things in the Observable Universe. They are small in size but emit enormous amounts of light.
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- We now know that quasars are actually supermassive blackholes at the center of galaxies. They can be billions of solar mass in size.
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- But not all supermassive blackholes are quasars. To be a quasar the blackhole must be consuming gas and stars at a breathtaking pace. This external matter spirals down into the blackhole rotating at enormous speeds, heating to enormous temperatures, and emitting the brightest light found in the universe.
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- Just how can a super massive blackhole exist when the Universe was so young?
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- The universe first emerged as the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. It started out very hot and cooled down quickly. It expanded and cooled down enough in 3 minutes for protons, neutrons, and electrons to form out of the soup of more fundamental particles.
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- The universe was too hot for neutral atoms to form. Protons and electrons attract with opposite charges, but heat vibrations would not allow them to cling together. Expansion and cooling continued another 380,000 years before that could happen. At this point in the expansion atomic neutral hydrogen and helium atoms could form. There became a uniform cloud of transparent to light neutral hydrogen and helium gas.
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- There were very small fluctuations in the density of this cloud of gas. Gravity began to condense those pockets with more mass and create a vacuum where there were an absence of mass distribution.
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- As the gas concentrated it condensed into stars and galaxies. These first galaxies formed when the Universe was only 180,000,000 years old. This was only 500 million years before this first stars existed. This is but a blink of the eye in galactic terms.
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- The fact that this oldest blackhole was such enormous size in such a short time challenges the calculations that astronomers have to make in order to explain it. That is far too short a time for stars to be born, die and become blackholes.
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- After that we need time for blackholes to devour one another in order to become the enormous mass that was found. We understand how this could happen, but, not in the shot time of 500 million years.
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- As blackholes consume matter they heat up and create a pressure that pushes back on matter that is falling into the blackhole. The process becomes self regulating slowing down the whole process of growth.
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- One other explanation has blackholes forming earlier in a mere 66 million years after the big bang. This explanation introduces dark matter that is five times more prevalent than ordinary matter. Perhaps dark matter is the primary creator of blackholes.
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- This oldest, enormous blackhole is the cause for much new thinking as to how the galaxies first formed. And, new thinking in how dark matter played a role in the early formation of galaxies.
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- There is more to be done, keep studying. Do we need new laws in our mathematics?
Are we missing mass that we cannot see? Do the rules change when we deal with enormous distances across the universe? Are there undiscovered particles like axions or neutralinos that could be the answer? Our next generation of students will find the answers.
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- December 24, 2018
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-------------------------- Saturday, December 22, 2018 --------------------------
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